palmate

English

Etymology

From Latin palmātus (“hand-shaped”), by extension (as palma acquired the meaning "palm tree"), "palm-leaf shaped".

Adjective

palmate (not comparable)

Four palmate (2) palm leaves.

1. (chiefly botany) Having three or more lobes or veins arising from a common point.

   Although palmate leaves are typical of most Western maples, a number of species have leaves without lobes.

2. (botany, of leaves) Having more than three leaflets arising from a common point, often in the form of a fan.
   • 1909, Eleanor Stockhouse Atkinson, “In the Tree Tops”, in The How and Why Library:

     The horse chestnut, buckeye and hickory trees have palmate leaves. That is, the broad oval leaflets are all set around the tip of a common leaf stem, spreading in a circle, like the ribs of a palm leaf fan.

3. (rare) Having webbed appendage; palmated.

   The Palmate Newt is a common Western European amphibian.

4. (rare) Hand-like; shaped like a hand with extended fingers

Usage notes

• The word is rare outside of technical writing, and hardly ever qualifies things other than leaves.
• A compound leaf with more than three leaflets (trifoliate) radiating from the same point is more usually called palmate or palmately compound to avoid ambiguity.
• While "palmated" is a more usual term when referring to webbed appendages, "palmate" is often found in zoological nomenclature as the Latin term for both meanings is palmatus.

Derived terms

• palmate newt
• totipalmate

 

Translations

botany: having three or more lobes or veins arising from a common point

• Bulgarian: длановиден (dlanoviden)
• Finnish: sormijakoinen (lobes); kourasuoninen (fi) (veins)
• German: gefingert (de)
• Russian: пальчатый (ru) m (palʹčatyj), дланевидный m (dlanevidnyj)

botany: having more than three leaflets arising from a common point

• Finnish: sormiliuskainen, sormiosainen

See also

• pinnate

Noun

palmate (plural palmates)

1. (chemistry) A salt or ester of ricinoleic acid (formerly called palmic acid); a ricinoleate.

Usage notes

• Used primarily as part of the International Nomenclature of Cosmetic Ingredients

Derived terms

• sodium palmate

Anagrams

• lampate, pelmata

Italian

Adjective

palmate

1. feminine plural of palmato

Latin

Verb

palmāte

1. second-person plural present active imperative of palmō

Spanish

Verb

palmate

1. second-person singular voseo imperative of palmar combined with te